Railway nationalization has for many years occupied the minds of economic and political students and the practical activities of statesmen in many countries and in English colonies. It has been regarded here as a remote possibility which might some day or other come to the front for practical discussion. But quite recently it would have been thought to be as incredible that any responsible politicians should be considering proposals for purchasing our railways for the State as that any substantial number of persons could be found who would advocate an abandonment of the fundamental principle that there should be no taxation of imports into England except for revenue purposes. In these days, however, public opinion moves suddenly and rapidly. The despised fallacy of yesterday rises as the creed of to-day. There are already many indications that, before long, there will be a numerous and influential, though perhaps a somewhat heterogeneous party, who will urge that immediate steps should be taken to nationalize our railways. The test, and the only test, to be applied to proposals for railway nationalization is whether railways owned by the State and worked directly by Government officials would be better and more efficient than railways owned and worked by private corporations, and whether, after taking account of all the effects of the change, upon each class, each district, each interest, the net result would increase the wealth and well-being of the community, and be a permanent benefit to the public. We may, I think, start from the assumption that railway proprietors as such have no interest in opposing nationalization. The value of their property, whether measured in terms of capital value or in terms of future income, estimated on a fair basis, would, it is assumed, be fully provided for in the gigantic financial operation which railway purchase would involve. There is no legal flaw in the title of railway proprietors. They enjoy the fundamental rights attached by our law to absolute property, subject only to the performance of obligations definitely prescribed by Acts of Parliament. I think, therefore, that we may discuss this subject of railway nationalization without apprehension that the change, if it were adopted by the deliberate judgment of the community, would be accompanied by anything in the nature of confiscation of existing rights.